BJC HealthCare is the largest provider of charity care in the state of Missouri. BJC hospitals and services provide approximately $100 million in charity and unreimbursed care each year to members of our community who are underinsured or uninsured. This is one of the ways we deliver on our commitment to serve everyone in our community with quality care.

 Another way BJC serves people in need is by providing care in a variety of convenient settings. For example, BJC Home Care Services offers patients and their families a complete range of in-home services, including skilled nursing, adult and pediatric supportive care, rehabilitation therapy, home respiratory care and home infusion therapy. BJC Home Care Services also offers a health monitoring system that measures and collects patients’ daily vital signs, and notifies both a nurse and the patient of changes that signal the need for follow-up care. Having recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, BJC Home Care Services is the largest home-care network in the region and one of the largest in the country.

Similarly, BJC Behavioral Health delivers and coordinates an array of customized, high-quality behavioral health services for children, adults and families. BJC Behavioral Health provides community-based short-term or long-term services, either on-site or through treatment providers in the community. More than 80 percent of those served by BJC Behavioral Health have incomes below the federal poverty level.

Employees at Parkland Health Center in rural St. Francois County recognized the need for better communication with the growing number of Spanish-speaking patients in their community. First, they translated the most frequently used brochures into Spanish. Then, Parkland employees compiled a list of local Spanish-speaking people who could serve as interpreters. But, matching interpreters' schedules with the unpredictable needs of patients and their families was not always effective. So, in 2004, Parkland engaged CyraCom International, a multilingual interpretation and translation service based in Tuscon, Ariz., that provides around-the-clock services. Several telephones, each equipped with two headsets, were placed throughout the hospital. The dual headsets allow a Parkland healthcare provider and a non-English-speaking patient to converse through a CyraCom interpreter versed in medical terminology. Employees in various departments are being trained on the system, and Parkland continues to study ways to better serve an increasingly diverse population in their community.


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